


in the name of love

by cheinsaw



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Families of Choice, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, PC-98, Parent Death, Smoking, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, brief misgendering/transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-12 12:31:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2110047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheinsaw/pseuds/cheinsaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marisa Kirisame's family has always been forged by choice, rather than by biology, and she wouldn't have it any other way. After all, the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rinnosuke

There's a six-year-old human child who always comes into Kourindou, from the very first day Rinnosuke sets up shop. Never has money to buy anything, just wanders around, touching all the merchandise and sometimes sitting up on the counter next to Rinnosuke. He knows that's the Kirisames' son, and vaguely recalls a name, but the first time he uses it he's met with a huffy " _Marisa_. My name's Ma-ri-sa."

This child is brave. Much more so than he was, growing up.

"I'm so sorry. I'll call you Marisa. Are you a girl?" Rinnosuke figures it's best to be up front about it. He's spent most of his life suffering the same way Marisa probably is—living with the knowledge that everyone saw him as something he wasn't. It was only upon moving to the little shop outside the human village that he was able to shed off the old, wrong identity, and begin living as a man. If only there had been someone to help him figure things out earlier, then maybe...

Marisa stares up at him with wide golden eyes. "I really want to be,” she says finally.

"If you want to be, then... You're a girl to me."

She hops up on the shop counter and starts to swing her legs back and forth. "Really?"

"Yes, of course. I'll tell you a secret, okay?" He leans close to her. "I'm the same. Everyone thought I was a girl, but I'm a boy."

Marisa's face clearly displays a warm understanding, and she smiles so wide.

"That's our secret, okay?"

She nods quickly, and a lifelong friendship begins.

Marisa comes in every day, and Rinnosuke learns to listen sharply for the little thwacks of her bare feet on the dirt path. She loves all the objects from the outside world that Rinnosuke collects, everything from appliances that run on electricity instead of magic to clothes that look comically out of place in Gensokyo. Sometimes there are things that not even Rinnosuke can hypothesize about. He and Marisa share their theories, and make up stories about what the outside might be like nowadays. She always seems so happy to be with him, smiling and laughing and comfortable. And after that first time, he never calls her the wrong name again, and within the walls of the tiny shop Marisa can just be the little girl she is.

Sometimes she wanders, leaves the shop early to walk up to the Hakurei shrine. She has a friend there, a kid her age, who's training to be the next shrine maiden of the border. Rinnosuke's glad about that, at least - that Marisa does keep company with someone closer to her age than he is. He hopes he can meet the newest Hakurei child someday, but he knows the shrine maidens rarely venture into the village, maintaining a mostly self-sufficient life up in their temples and shrines.

The first day she doesn't come to Kourindou at all is the day before her mother dies. Rinnosuke had heard she was sick, but had no idea how bad it was. Marisa spends all day by her bedside, and the whole next day crying in her own room under her covers, or simply in shock. Rinnosuke finds this out three days later, when she and her father come to invite him to the funeral, and the youthful spark in her eyes has gone out.

Rinnosuke sits behind Marisa at the ceremony for her mother. The front row is reserved for the family, so he spends most of the funeral staring at the back of Marisa's head, the fluffy, ragged mop of her hair neatly brushed straight for probably the first time in years. Her shoulders are hunched uncomfortably, and his heart hurts to see her this way.

When he finally gets to tell her he's sorry, she cries against him, and he lets her.

* * *

When she's ready to talk, she sits on Rinnosuke's counter like usual, looking down at her feet dangling several inches above the floor. She wants to study magic to be like her mother, who was a part-time greenwitch. Somehow, Rinnosuke understands that this is her way of preserving her mother's memory, by carrying on the legacy. Magic is in her blood, and it's what she wants to do with her life.

"I'm afraid I don't know much about magic, at least not the kind you want to do," he tells her.

"It's okay. I know where I'm gonna learn."

"Oh?"

"My mom taught me a little, but... There's a ghost that haunts Reimu's shrine and she's really good and I wanna learn from her."

"What does your dad think?"

Marisa frowns. "He says magic's not for boys." She frowns harder, and then in a spot-on impersonation of her father's voice, says, "Magic is _foolish_ and _dangerous_."

"Don't mind him," Rinnosuke says gently. "I think someday you'll be the best magician in the whole world."

"Really?"

"Sure. Your name's written with the character for it, right? There's no way you couldn't be a good magician."

Marisa half-smiles, and leans back on the counter, almost toppling herself over. As she rights herself, Rinnosuke watches as her eyes land on the most dangerous object in the shop, and oh _no_.

Marisa’s certainly gotten her hands on things in the shop that she shouldn't be touching on many occasions, but the mini-Hakkero is the worst, and very, very unpredictable. Rinnosuke usually keeps it under the desk, in a protective cabinet, to prevent any accidents. He'd taken it out that morning to show a curious youkai who already knew of its existence, and hadn't gotten around to putting it back.

"What's this?"

"Oh, no, Marisa please don't touch—" But it's too late, and Marisa's stubby little fingers enclose the wooden block. Rinnosuke braces for the worst, but nothing happens.

"It's warm," Marisa says. "Cool. What is it?"

Rinnosuke can't even believe it. Most humans would probably die if the mini-Hakkero was just placed in their hands like that. But Marisa seems to be able to control its functions, laying it flat in her palm and examining it from all sides.

"A very small, very powerful furnace," he concedes.

"Can I keep it?"

"Someday. When you're ready."

"I'm ready now!"

"I know, Marisa. But it's dangerous. It could destroy an entire mountain in seconds." Marisa's eyes look like saucers at this revelation. "So I want to keep it until you're a little older, if that's okay. I don't want you to accidentally blow up the village."

Marisa groans. "Fiiiiiine." She reluctantly places the mini-Hakkero back onto the counter, and watches as Rinnosuke delicately slides it back in its little box. For now, it's safe. But he knows Marisa's eye is on it, and that someday, it will be hers, when the time is right.

About a week after, a little purple dress, robelike and child-sized, appears in the shop, having drifted in from the outside world. Rinnosuke doesn't put it out with the rest of the merchandise. He knows who should have it, first and foremost, and it's the least he can do.

When Marisa sees it, she can't take her eyes off it. "This is for me?"

"All yours. I saved it for you."

She reaches out to rub the soft velvety fabric between her fingers in awe. "Really?"

"Really!"

"Thank you, Kourin!" She looks like she might cry or start jumping up and down. "Thank you thank you thank youuuuu!"

"It's no problem." He laughs as Marisa hugs his legs, and he pats her on the head affectionately.

Soon after, Marisa's gone. She simply disappears one day, with no indication that she had left her house for anything more than a short walk. How old is she? Rinnosuke dimly wonders. Seven? Eight? Much too young to be on her own. Her father bursts into Kourindou, angrily asking if he's hiding Marisa somewhere, _my son thinks he's a girl and then he's missing_ , and it is then that Rinnosuke realizes with a disgusting, horrible feeling in his stomach, that Marisa probably ran away not only to study magic, but also because of the man standing in front of him right now.

They check all her favorite places, the trees she climbed, the shops she visited other than Rinnosuke's, the little library in town where she'd spend rainy days. Marisa's father even travels to the Hakurei shrine on foot, finding nothing but an empty house and a notice that the shrine maiden has gone away to train. A rumor circulates that Marisa left with the Hakurei girl, but no one can prove or disprove it. After a while it settles down, and no one talks much about Marisa anymore, her existence becoming a consciously avoided topic in the village.

But Marisa is a strong girl, especially for her age. Rinnosuke is worried, but he trusts his intuition, and he knows that someday, when she's ready, she'll be back. Maybe not in a long time. But she will come back.

When Rinnosuke checks under the counter almost a week after the disappearance, the mini-Hakkero is gone, ' _sorry_ ' scrawled in the dust with a fingertip next to its usual place. And he smiles, because he knows that everything will be okay.


	2. Reimu

Everything Reimu does these days is practice, now that it's spring and the weather's getting tolerable. Being outside is loads better than sitting in the cramped shrine making about a billion talismans and omamori, just in case someone wants them. The shrine doesn't get many visitors other than stray ghosts, and whatever Mima is, but Reimu figures there has to be at least some use for them. After all, she's the shrine maiden of the border, right? It's part of her job. But if she has a choice, she’d rather not. So even though she doesn’t really _need_  to practice, she spends each day in the fields bordering the shrine, swinging her purification rod around until it feels like it's part of her body and shooting danmaku out of the yin-yang orbs until her head hurts. She's going to be the strongest shrine maiden Gensokyo has ever seen, she's sure of it.

The shrine is in a remote location, and is usually deserted—Reimu's lived alone, aside from Genjii and kind of Mima, for as long as she can remember, and that's the way she likes it—so when a little redhead girl starts showing up Reimu's confused, and has half a mind to start firing at her and ask questions later.

"Hi!" the girl hollers, the first time. "I'm Marisa, I came to see your shrine."

"I'm kinda busy," Reimu calls back, slicing the purification rod through the air, tails of fabric fluttering behind it.

"Can I at least watch from over here? I won't touch anything!"

"What if I need to fight you someday?"

"I'm human!" Marisa says indignantly. "Wait, you don't fight humans, right?"

"I try not to." Out of the corner of her eye she sees Marisa lazily lie back on the grass, a hand at her forehead to block out the sun. "Hey, what are you doing?"

"Lookin' at the clouds. They look really close up here. In the village you can't see anything 'cause of all the trees."

The village? "Wait, did you walk up here from the human village?"

"Yeah." Like it's nothing. "Oh, I almost forgot, want some bean buns?" She scrambles to her feet and darts over to Reimu, digging in the satchel that hangs at her waist. Up close, Reimu can see she has a heavy dusting of freckles over her face, and that she's missing one of her front teeth, and that her short hair is tangled beyond belief. (Later, she will notice that Marisa is always covered in dirt and grass stains. She's a mess, a natural disaster.)

Reimu takes the bun Marisa offers in her small hand, and finds that it's surprisingly light and chewy, and filled with sweet bean paste. Nothing like her usual fish and rice and sometimes cherries from the tree in her yard. This has the taste of being lovingly prepared by someone who knows how to cook and does it well.

"These are really good," Reimu eventually says, not wanting to talk with her mouth full. A shrine maiden has to have _some_ dignity.

"Heh, thanks! I helped my mom make 'em. I think they were supposed to be my lunch but I wanted to share them with my new friend."

"What?"

"You. Do you wanna be my friend?"

"Sure," Reimu says, because that seems to be the easiest option. "I'm Reimu. It's nice to meet you."

Marisa grins, and pops another bean bun into her mouth, and Reimu wonders briefly what she's just gotten herself into, and how it even happened.

But Reimu does find that she enjoys Marisa's presence, somehow. She's rough, and messy, and laughs very loud. She shows up uninvited, and challenges Reimu to games such as Let's See Who Can Run Up The Shrine Steps Faster Ready Go, or Hey Reimu I Bet I Can Make You Scream If I Slap Your Sunburn. She is anything but dull, and she brightens Reimu's days, and Reimu finds herself sort of looking forward to Marisa's surprise visits. Sometimes Marisa will take interest in the things that slip through the border from the outside world, and take them back to the village with her. That's an added bonus, since it means there are no longer piles of unidentifiable objects littering the yard.

Marisa's surprisingly not difficult to talk to either, when she settles down. Reimu tells her about the youkai that sometimes haunt her shrine, and in turn hears about life in the human village. The trees are so tall, she says, and there's a person who's on fire sometimes, if you squint the right way out into the bamboo forest. On the other side of town, near the Forest of Magic, there's a secondhand shop that Reimu makes a mental note to check out someday for many reasons, not least of which is that Marisa says the owner is like her older brother. There are all kinds of shops in the center of town, and a school, and a small library. Reimu didn't know the human village could have such a culture, compared to the rest of the varied youkai settlements spanning Gensokyo, and casually remarks one day that Marisa has it pretty nice, living in there.

But Marisa shakes her head. "I'm gonna leave someday. I want to do really cool things, 'n' I wanna see all of Gensokyo."

"Let's do it together," Reimu resolves. She'll likely be seeing it all anyway, because of her position as the Hakurei shrine maiden, and she is young and enjoys having this person by her side, and couldn't imagine that fact ever changing. Marisa wholeheartedly agrees, and it’s sealed.

* * *

Marisa doesn't come to the shrine on rainy days. She tells Reimu that it's because she's a big reader, and likes to spend the bad weather days in the library, but also that it's kind of hard to walk such a long distance on a dirt path in the rain. The one time it does happen, it's a sudden downpour on an otherwise lovely day, and Reimu has no choice but to invite Marisa in and help warm her up. They sit inside the shrine having tea (black for Reimu, four sugar cubes for Marisa) with towels over their shoulders and their legs under the kotatsu. And then, out of the blue, Marisa asks, "Can I try on your shrine maiden outfit?"

It takes Reimu aback. "Um? Why?"

Across the kotatsu, Marisa shrugs. "I just wanna see what I look like wearing it."

It's a strange request, but Reimu sees no reason to say no, and by the time she brings back one of her spare outfits Marisa is nearly shaking with excitement.

"Thanks, Reimu! I'll be really really careful, just hold on!" She takes the clothes in her hands and skips off to get changed.

"Don't you need any help putting it on?" Reimu calls after her, but Marisa is already behind the closed bedroom door. When she doesn't come out within five minutes, Reimu decides it is probably best to go check on her, and tiptoes up to the door. "Marisa? Are you alright?"

"Oh! Yeah, I'm, I'm fine, you can come in if you want."

Marisa is standing in front of Reimu’s tiny mirror, staring at herself with the corners of her mouth curving far up, and trying to angle herself so she can see her whole body better. The white and red cloth of the outfit does not suit Marisa. Her hair clashes with it, and the fabric hangs loosely where it's too big for her arms and legs. But there's a sparkle in her eyes as she stares at herself in it, and she can't stop smiling.

Reimu isn't sure what she's seeing, but it must be important, even if it's something she can't quite understand. She gets the sense that this is a gift, wearing a shrine maiden outfit, one Marisa has wanted for a long time.

(It is not the shrine maiden outfit, she finds out nearly ten years later. It's Marisa seeing herself wearing clothes that are deemed completely feminine, for the first time in her life, and this is more important than an eight-year-old Reimu ever could have imagined.)

"It feels so weird to wear skirts," Marisa muses as she twirls. "I kinda like it."

"You don't have any at home?" Reimu asks as she moves to tie the sash at Marisa's waist in the back.

"Nope! Ow, that's tight."

Reimu snorts. "You're so strange."

"Hey," Marisa shoots back, even though she's still smiling. "At least my clothes are comfortable. I feel like I'm gonna suffocate in this."

"Then take it off!"

"No!" Marisa giggles, and reaches over to pull a fistful of Reimu's hair, and before long they are collapsed on the ground, laughing like only children can.

In the summer after they meet, Reimu has to go and train up in the mountains behind the shrine. It's a ritual all Hakurei maidens have to go through before their tenth birthdays, and she's fairly excited to hone her skills further. Marisa says she'll miss Reimu "so much! What if I _die of boredom_ without you?", and Reimu startlingly finds that she feels the same. Marisa's grown on her, as close to a sibling as she'll ever get. At their last meeting before Reimu leaves, Marisa brings her all kinds of snacks to take with her on the journey, and Reimu ties one of her favorite ribbons in Marisa's hair in exchange. Despite the separation that's ahead, they are both smiling when they part.

And when Reimu comes home the shrine is overrun with ghosts, and her best friend is under Mima's apprenticeship, and everything is stranger than it was when she left. Marisa knows magic now, and can fly, and shoots star-shaped danmaku like an expert. Reimu was right, that first day. She knew she'd have to fight Marisa eventually. But soon, it's over, and the shrine is almost back to how things were before, with Reimu and Marisa together. Even Mima has returned to normal, hovering around the shrine and occasionally shouting down to bother Reimu. The only difference is that now, there’s nothing stopping Marisa from following when Reimu goes to solve an incident. They’re on their way to seeing all of Gensokyo together, as best friends and as sisters and everything in between. And Reimu no longer prefers to be alone, if Marisa's by her side.


	3. Mima

"Teach me magic."

"Go home, kid."

"No!"

"I'm busy."

"I wanna learn magic. I'm not leaving until you say yes."

"Aren't your parents going to worr—"

"My dad _sucks_ ," the girl pouts up at Mima, crossing her arms. "I hate him. Please... I really want to learn magic."

Mima's quite familiar with this girl. She's a good friend of the Hakurei maiden, as good of a friend as a Hakurei maiden could ever hope to have. She runs through a mental checklist of facts she knows about the girl: her name is Marisa, she lives in the human village, and she is tenacious and excitable and tomboyish and boundlessly energetic. Not something Mima wants to take on as a challenge. But she also knows that Marisa is unlikely to back down, young as she is. The kid's even picked up a robe and witch's hat and matching toy wand from somewhere, looking all too eager to play the part of a fledgling magician.

"Where's Reimu? She can teach you."

"No. Reimu does shrine maiden stuff. I want to know _magic_. And besides, she's gone off training." Marisa pushes her lower lip out in a half-pout.

Mima is stuck. There's no way she needs an apprentice or a little kid following her around, especially not a human. But at the same time, she can see that Marisa is dedicated, and that she probably has nowhere else to go.

"Call me Mima-sama, and I'll do it," she decides, because she's feeling slightly benevolent today.

"Mima-sama," Marisa immediately repeats.

"Deal."

They take up residence in a little abandoned cottage in the Forest of Magic after Marisa refuses to stay in Reimu's shrine without permission. ("What if the kami gets angry?" Mima already knows the kami doesn't care, but after the first hour she learned not to argue with an eight-year-old.) Mima sets up spells around the premises, for protection and to heat the place and fix it up and a hundred other things that humans need and she does not. Marisa is immediately on her case, bounding over to stick her nose into Mima's space. "Whatcha doing?"

"Working."

"Can I help?"

"No."

"C'mon, Mima!"

"What did we talk about?"

Marisa sighs. "Mima-sama."

"Good."

"Okay, can I help _now_?"

"In a minute."

This repeats for the next half hour. Eventually Marisa gets bored of asking and starts running around the little clearing in the forest, making whooshing noises with her mouth and laughing by herself. Somehow, it's worse than before. Mima calls her over, places a hand on Marisa's shoulder.

"Okay, first up, you're going to fly." Mima spends all her time floating in the air because of her spirit tail, and flying is second nature, but she may as well get this part of the training over with. There's no such thing as a Gensokyo magician who can't fly. Marisa squeals, and Mima flinches. "You need to relax. Find your center. And pull the energy up, and direct it towards floating."

Marisa screws up her face in intense concentration, but nothing happens.

"Don't think about falling."

Still nothing. It's quickly clear that Marisa has no idea how to achieve flight. After a bit of practice she can get off the ground, and screams in delight whenever she does, but always falls back down within a minute. "I told you not to think about falling!" Mima says, exasperated. Marisa whines back that she’s _not_ , and Mima grows ever more frustrated. She even tries picking Marisa up by the arms and helping her maintain a float a couple feet off the ground, but again, she can't hold onto it. So, regretfully, a few days later Mima charms a broom to have flight powers, hoping Marisa will get the hang of flying on her own eventually. Marisa soars with it, and Mima feels almost proud. But still mostly annoyed.

Their apprenticeship is a rocky one. Marisa always seems most preoccupied with making the biggest explosions and the flashiest danmaku possible rather than actually learning about the fundamentals of magic and shooting. She shows off a palm-sized block of wood, covered in trigrams, saying that it could blow up a whole mountain. Mima promptly confiscates it, and Marisa howls. "That's mine! Give it back, it's from my friend!"

"Who in their right mind would entrust you with such a thing?"

Marisa laughs guiltily. "I actually kinda. Stole it. But it's okay because he said it'd be mine someday anyway!"

Mima sighs and makes a mental note to study the thing later, on her own. "You are my apprentice. And I say the time for you to have it is not now."

"Come _on_!" Marisa whines.

"You need to master the basics first. How do you think this works? Do you think I'm going to just do all the work and let you destroy Gensokyo with that thing?"

"It's still mine," Marisa grumbles.

Mima swears to instill in Marisa that power like the mini-Hakkero has must be earned, before the whole thing is over. She eventually decides the best course of action is to fight Marisa daily, danmaku only, and won't let Marisa graduate from her apprenticeship until Marisa either beats her fairly, or Mima gets fed up and lets her win. Seeing as Marisa only knows spells that Mima taught her, it might be a while before the former happens.

"Do you regret this yet?" Mima finds herself asking every day as she barrages Marisa with brightly colored magical bullets.

"Nope!" is Marisa's consistent reply.

And despite how human and annoying and childish Marisa is, Mima finds herself growing kind of attached. While her life in the little cottage isn't really pleasant, per se, it's at the very least slightly enjoyable. At least until Mima comes back from the Hakurei shrine one evening to find Marisa very blonde.

"Heh," Marisa says, knowing she's been caught. She's sitting in the middle of a chalk formation scribbled down right on the floor, and surrounded by books and notes and candles, but aside from her newly lightened hair (is it longer, too? Mima can't tell. Maybe humans' hair grows faster than she'd thought), looks no worse for the wear.

"Marisa," Mima says warningly. She must have told Marisa not to experiment with magic without supervision at least a hundred times by now, and yet here they are, with Marisa obviously not having listened.

"No, okay, Mima-sama, it's fine, see? I was just trying to do this spell. But I guess it kinda screwed up. But, huh, I kinda like my hair like this..." She tugs at it, clearly hoping she won't get in trouble.

"What were you trying to do?" Mima prays that nothing besides Marisa's hair got mixed up unexpectedly.

"Change something."

"I know that. _What_ were you trying to change," she asks flatly.

Marisa can't look at Mima, her gaze fixed on an open book off to the side. "My body."

Mima finally snaps, fed up with Marisa's vagueness when she could have been dead if something went wrong. "Marisa! You could have removed an organ or destroyed yourself. Don't ever, ever do that again. You're what, like ten years old? Why the hell do you need body modification magic?"

Eyes cast down, Marisa tells her.

_Oh_.

"I just wanna grow up like a real girl," Marisa says, biting her lip as her eyes fill with tears. She tries to blink them away, and when she can't, shrinks under the brim of her hat.

"You are a real girl," Mima says, as gently and yet firmly as she can manage. Part of the training Mima's given has been to undo the harmful beliefs Marisa's grown up with in the village, and this is no different. "Hey. Listen to me. Put all this stuff away and then we'll talk. But don't ever think you aren't a real girl."

Marisa nods, her lip trembling as she looks up to Mima.

"Right. Get to it."

When Marisa finishes cleaning, the sky has gone dark and the forest is quiet, and she immediately makes for her bedroom. She probably thinks Mima hasn't noticed, but Mima knows this is what Marisa does when she's upset: she escapes and hides inside herself, not wanting to show that she's been hurt.

"Marisa," Mima calls, outside the closed door.

After a long moment, Marisa says, "Come in."

She's under the blankets on her bed, the covers drawn up to her nose. Her hat is tossed on the floor next to her robe, and she looks so tense and vulnerable. Mima can't remember ever seeing her like this before. She sits down on the bed next to Marisa. "Sorry for yelling. I guess I just got worried about you."

"It's okay," Marisa mumbles.

"I'm not angry."

"Yeah."

Mima sighs heavily. "Sometimes... there are things we don't understand, when we're born into magic. I'm not a ghost, but I don't know where I came from or why I have this... tail." Marisa nods. "And you were born in the wrong body."

"No I wasn't," Marisa says thickly, clearly trying not to cry.

"Oh? You weren't?"

"This is _my_ body. I'm in it. I just wanna change part of it," she explains.

"Ah... Well, magic is... a curious thing. And sometimes even if it can't help us right what we feel are wrongs, it can help us understand them."

"I'm scared," Marisa whispers, so soft and muffled by the covers that Mima almost can't hear.

Mima tries to pull the covers back from Marisa's face, but Marisa is holding on too tightly, so she gives up. "Don't be scared. You're on a fast track to incredible power, if you work for it. But you have to _work_. Just understand what you are and aren't capable of at your level, so you don't get hurt. "

Marisa makes a small noise. Mima takes that as an agreement.

"And I'll help you. You don't need to do anything you don't want to, but if you want to change any part of your body? I'm right here."

"Mhmm... Thanks, Mom," Marisa says quietly, and her eyes close sleepily for a little longer than a second. Mima feels a jolt to the heart she didn't know she had. _You are not her mother_ , something inside of her says. But at the same time, Mima knows she is the closest thing, and that's enough for both of them right now.

"Goodnight, Marisa," she murmurs back.


	4. Interlude: Marisa

Marisa finally beats Mima in a danmaku fight when she is eleven. To her surprise, Mima laughs and pats her on the head and congratulates her. "Good work," she says, and the mini-Hakkero is back in Marisa's hands at last.

She and Mima divide most of their time between the cottage and the Hakurei shrine, dropping in on Reimu unannounced or creating new spells together. When they study magic together, as equals, Marisa finds that she's _good_ at this, that she can make sense of the magical formations and can alter them to do what she wants. Mima's given her a solid base of knowledge to work with, and it isn't long before her fighting abilities are on the same tier as Reimu's. She's worked hard for it, and it makes her proud. And Mima will smile at her, in her Mima way, and ruffle her hair, and Marisa knows she's done something great.

Two years after Marisa graduates from her apprenticeship, Mima disappears from both the shrine and the forest. "You didn't do that evil-spirit-begone thing on her, did you?" she asks Reimu worriedly after neither of them has seen her in at least three days.

"I've been trying for years and all she does is break out of it," Reimu replies. "But this time, no."

So Mima is gone, evil spirit turned not-so-evil, and Marisa feels cut off. Like she wasn't ready to say goodbye, and she was left assuming there would be another meeting, but that meeting never came. It's different than it was with her mother. It feels more like Mima's presence has been stolen away, rather than the blunt hollowness that surrounded her after her mother's death.

"She'll probably come back around," Reimu reassures her. Marisa can only hope that it's true.

* * *

She doesn't.

The cottage in the Forest of Magic belongs totally to Marisa now. It's her home, her place in the world. But still, it's strange to be in it without Mima. Although she's mysteriously gone now, the foundations she laid are still there. Not a day goes by that Marisa can't appreciate everything Mima did for her.

She can fly without her broom now, doing loops in the air and hovering upside down just for the hell of it. She doesn't know how it happened, really; she just woke up one morning and floated into the kitchen before she realized what she was doing. She decides to keep the magic broom around, just to complete the witch's look, and as a fond reminder of Mima. The dollmaker who lives half a kilometer away makes her an array of black dresses, at her request, so stains won't show easily. She picks mushrooms, experimenting with which have magical properties and combining them to make potions. Her own library steadily grows and grows. Before too long she can finally put the mini-Hakkero's destructive power to good use, by improving on a spell she saw someone use somewhere before, creating the copy spell from scratch. She works at it until she creates a large, controlled blast of hot light that can reduce a tree to splinters. It's perfect, and in a fit of joy she names it the Master Spark, something all her own. She couldn't be happier.

On the last day of summer she and Reimu eat slices of watermelon and watch the sun go down over Gensokyo together. It's a warm, hazy day, and Marisa's perfectly content. In one of her new black dresses, with the starched white apron light against her thighs, she watches a meteor shower from up on the roof of the shrine, Reimu within arm's reach. Watching the lights shoot down across the sky, she knows this is a perfect moment, the rightest thing in the world. She exists here, as a star-shaped love-colored magician girl, despite what her father said. She's made it.

There are so many things she's ready for. There is so much to do in the world.

 


	5. Rinnosuke

Of course, there isn't much in the world she wants to do before seeing her oldest friend again. It feels like the longer she waits, the more distance grows between them, and the thought is frightening. It's high time Marisa set things right by paying Rinnosuke a long-overdue visit.

Kourindou used to be quite the hike from Marisa's cottage in the Forest of Magic, and Mima never liked when Marisa tried to visit her old human friends, even when she insisted Rinnosuke was a half-youkai. Mima would just start talking about what a _waste_ it would be if Marisa went back to her old life before her training was finished, and Marisa would grumble and sigh. But now that she can fly unaided and unsupervised, there's nothing stopping her. The trip doesn't take any more than ten minutes, with Marisa zipping above the trees and happily letting the wind whip through her hair. She touches down on the same dirt path she used to run barefoot on when she was younger, her heart beating fast from the exhilaration of flying. She suddenly feels almost like a child again, outside Kourindou.

When she opens the shop door, Rinnosuke looks up from the book he's reading, ready to greet a potential customer, and then nearly drops it. "Marisa?" he says, smiling in recognition.

"Hey."

Rinnosuke laughs, almost disbelieving. "You look so good."

She beams. "Thanks!" She knows what he's seeing—her dress and her long blonde hair and the tiny braid at the side like her mother used to wear. She's a very different Marisa than the little redhead he last saw her as. For the first time, Rinnosuke is seeing _her_ , as she wants to be seen.

"How have you been?"

"How much have you heard?" Marisa laughs, knowing her budding reputation as the most destructively flashy youkai hunter in all of Gensokyo.

Rinnosuke looks thoughtful for a moment. "A human witch dressed in black and white, with a signature blast she calls the Master Spark. Would that be the mini-Hakkero?"

The twinge of shame she's learned not to feel when people talk about her thieving habits suddenly rears its head full force. "Oh, uh, yeah." Marisa digs it out, puts it down on the shop counter. "Sorry for stealing it back then. I didn't really know what else to do."

To her surprise Rinnosuke shakes his head and pushes it back towards her. "It's yours."

"You sure, Kourin?"

"Positively. I told you that you would have it when the time was right. Please keep it, my gift."

Marisa stows it back in her apron's pocket as Rinnosuke adds, "But I'd like to see that Master Spark."

Marisa chuckles happily. "You got it!"

Rinnosuke leads her outside, not wanting anything in his shop to get damaged by the mini-Hakkero, and hangs the CLOSED sign on the door. "Still slow around here, huh?" Marisa smirks. "Like, you can just close like that."

"I prefer to see it as one of the many benefits of keeping your own hours," Rinnosuke says, never one to be fazed by Marisa and her comments.

He leads the way to the nearest clearing in the woods, and Marisa opens fire with the mini-Hakkero, lightly scorching the grass and nearly knocking herself off her feet. She's still not used to the recoil on the blast. Nevertheless, Rinnosuke congratulates her.  "I knew you'd use it well!"

"It's kinda my last-ditch bomb thing," Marisa says. "Mostly I just..." She lets a few brightly-colored pointed star danmaku flutter towards him non-threateningly.

"Impressive."

"So what've you been up to?" Marisa asks, a hand on her hip.

"Oh, the usual. Not much has changed since you left. Selling things. Picking up items from the outside."

Marisa grins, sitting down under the nearest shady tree outside the line of fire where the Master Spark grazed against the earth. "I'd love to catch up."

Talking to Rinnosuke comes naturally, even after five years of separation. Marisa finds that she can relax, and slip easily into the comfortable relationship they used to have, as if no time has passed at all. Rinnosuke shares his lunch with Marisa when he realizes she hasn't brought any food, and besides, her kitchen is filled with possibly-lethal mushrooms anyway. She thanks him, torn between savoring the taste of actual human cooking and shoveling the food into her mouth, and Rinnosuke laughs at her. "You're just the same as always," he says, and she punches him in the arm with her mouth full of rice.

After they're done eating their shared bento box, Marisa sprawls out under the tree, her wide-brimmed hat slumping over her face. "Goodnight."

She can't see for all the ruffles of fabric, but she feels and hears Rinnosuke move over next to her. And on an impulse, she starts to speak again. "Hey, I don't usually, like, talk about stuff like this? But, uh, thanks for being so good to me when I was little," Marisa murmurs, leaning to rest her head against his shoulder. "I dunno where I'd be without you. In a lot of ways."

"It's no trouble," he says, letting her just lay there. "How old are you now?"

She tips her hat up so she can see again. "Thirteen."

"Getting up there."

"Ah, shut up. Not as old as you." She smiles, closing her eyes for a moment. "Hey, does my dad ever ask about me? Like, uh, if you ever see him?"

Rinnosuke turns to look down at her, and judging by the expression on his face she would probably regret hearing whatever answer he had to give.

"Never mind, actually. I don't think I wanna know. I haven't talked to him since the day I left. Kinda want to keep it that way."

"That's very relieving to hear, actually."

"Yeah," she sighs. "I feel like I'm a lot better without him."

"If I may be honest, I think you probably are too."

Marisa snorts. "Hey, 'least we agree on the important stuff." And the subject is, thankfully, dropped.

* * *

Rinnosuke tells her all about the latest happenings of the human village, and the items he's collected in his shop, and Marisa exchanges her tales of fighting youkai. She tells him in depth about the miasma in Makai, and all the magicians there, and the time she broke into the Scarlet Devil Mansion when it was billowing dark red mist everywhere. Rinnosuke listens appreciatively, sometimes offering his own opinions about the youkai and the things she's seen. He's most interested in the workings of the Probability Space Hypervessel, and Marisa tells him all she knows about the ship and its crew. The conversation flows naturally, and Marisa almost feels like she's reliving the events of the past few years, finally getting to tell her tales to someone who's just as interested as she is. She speaks Rinnosuke's language now, the one of magic and science and curiosities.

Marisa stays until the sunlight filtering through the trees turns gold, then orange. "I should probably get going before it gets dark," she says, and stretches. If there's anything she's learned in the last five years it's to never get caught in the woods alone at night. Even though Marisa knows the Forest of Magic better than anyone, she still doesn't trust what lurks in it after sundown. They make their way back to Kourindou in content silence, long shadows falling in front of them as they walk.

"You're welcome anytime, you know," he says as she's sitting sideways on her broom outside the shop door, hovering at Rinnosuke's eye level. He's always been taller than her, but he can't fly like she can, now.

"I know. I'll bring ya some stuff if I don't have any use for it!" She tips her hat at him, and almost turns to leave. "Oh yeah, I'm living in the Forest now, you can come visit me if you want. Or I can fly you there. It might kinda take a while on foot."

Rinnosuke happily accepts both offers, and when Marisa flies off home, into the sunset, she's bursting with energy. She almost wants to find an excuse to come back tomorrow. It feels so bright, being there. It feels like home.


	6. Reimu

It's in the first reaches of autumn's golden chill, in the year after the Lunarians hide the true moon and Marisa stops the night, that she decides to tell Reimu about the whole gender thing. All these years, she's regretted it, but theirs is a friendship that doesn't demand that the serious things be talked about, and Marisa hasn't spent much of her time practicing sincerity anyway. She rehearses it in her mirror, "Yo, Reimu, I gotta tell you something—" before deciding she can't take it seriously staring at her own face, her own lips moving. Eventually she decides to just wing it, figuring the emotional preparation is much more necessary than the actual words. Reimu will get what she means anyway. Reimu will understand.

The harvest festival is fast approaching, and Marisa knows Reimu will be procrastinating on readying her shrine for the influx of drunken youkai for as long as possible. She's right on the money, as when she shows up at the shrine that day, Reimu's pretending to sweep the steps but is actually chain smoking. Marisa's highly familiar with the act (the steps almost never need to be swept anyway, so it's Reimu's favorite time-waster that still makes her look responsible) but decides not to tease her about it this time. "Hey, Reimu."

"Hey." Reimu stops sweeping for a moment. Faint, hazy smoke curls around Marisa, warm and comforting in the mid-autumn air, and complementing the orange-red leaves just starting to fall around the shrine. Marisa doesn't smoke, but Reimu is the only person she really knows who does, so the smell of it always makes her feel at ease.

"Suika here?"

"Nah, Suika's... doing whatever it is drunk oni do on their days off."

Marisa hums. "Oh, good."

"Why?"

She hadn't realized that was out loud, but there's no backing down now. "Um. I got something kinda important to tell you." Marisa is suddenly nervous, more than she could have anticipated. It's not even as if Reimu will stop seeing her as a girl when she finds out. It's just so nerve-wracking to think about, and being scared is not something Marisa likes to experience. But Reimu was not raised in the human village, where being different is never good. _Reimu will understand_ , she keeps reminding herself. She'd bet her whole stash of magical books, her whole house, her mini-Hakkero, that Reimu will understand.

"Shoot." Reimu pulls her smokes out of her shirt and lights another one with the stub of the cigarette still lit in her mouth. She tosses the butt against the back of the empty donation box.

Marisa watches it briefly lie smoldering until it flickers out, and then inhales deeply. "Well. Like. I'm a girl." Reimu doesn't look impressed by this opening. "But," and her breath catches, "I was kind of born as... Well, I dunno, I wasn't born a boy, I've never been a boy, but that's what people thought until I..."

"Oh. That's... I get it." Reimu sits at the top of the shrine's steps, facing Marisa, laying her broom down. "You know, I didn't even realize until a couple years ago that that can happen to humans too. I thought it was just youkai."

"Yeah, here I am," Marisa says. "The human village is kind of horrible about it, so I guess you don't really hear about people like me too often." She bites her lip, thinking of how it's taken her so long to accept that her childhood was a bit more stressful than it should have been, all thanks to who and what and where she was.

"You had a hard time as a kid, right?" Reimu asks, all serious and quiet and sad. This is something they have never spoken of before, even though it must have been obvious to Reimu for years.

"Yeah," Marisa says after a moment. "But it's alright, I'm out of there now. I don't talk to anybody who made my life difficult anymore. Not worth the energy." She sighs, hating the uncomfortable feelings that flood her whenever she thinks about the first six or seven or eight years of her life. "They—the people in the village, they just want to survive, I guess. They don't really like it when a kid they think is a boy starts saying she's not."

"I'm sorry," Reimu says.

"Don't be. It isn't your fault, you've always been good about it." And Marisa slaps her trademark smile back on, and even though she knows Reimu won't buy it, she can almost convince herself it's genuine.

"Hey, I do want to know one thing, though," Reimu adds.

"Yeah?" Marisa braces for uncomfortable questions about her body. She runs her thumb in a quick circle around the handle of her broom to calm her nerves.

"How'd you get your name?"

Marisa kicks up a pile of dirt at the base of the steps almost in relief. "I dunno. It's... When I was real little, before my mom died she... she said if I was a girl she woulda named me Marisa. Like, the kanji for magic is just really important to have in my name, you know? And I think even though she never got to know me as a girl she'd be happy about it." She sits down on the steps and leans all the way back, resting the top of her head on the stairs behind her, to watch upside-down Reimu take a long drag. "I dunno," she repeats. "It just makes sense to me."

"I think it suits you," Reimu tells her, after she blows all the smoke out of her mouth. "And besides, it's your name. If you like it then it doesn't really matter what anyone else says."

"You thinkin' of changing your name too?" Marisa asks as she twists her body around to face Reimu.

Reimu snorts. "No. I was just kind of wondering."

"My mom was a witch too," Marisa says after a moment. "That's... why she picked that name for me."

"In the human village?" Reimu looks genuinely surprised, and it makes her look younger than she is for a moment.

"Yeah. She was a greenwitch though, not a magician. Did stuff with herbs and medicines and healing and like eight hundred different plants or something. I know a little bit because of her."

"Please tell me that isn't why you do those things with the mushrooms."

"Don't worry, that's all me."

"Good, because I couldn't let it slide if there were people in the human village teaching their kids how to create fungus disasters." She smiles wryly.

"Hey, they are _not_ disasters. Some of them are really cool. I wanna try selling 'em someday."

"You could sell them as projectiles."

Marisa groans and swears. "I could bring some to the festival in case anybody gets way outta control."

"Don't," Reimu says automatically. "What exactly _are_ you contributing to the harvest festival?"

"My wonderful presence."

"I should have known." She stubs out her cigarette against the shrine steps, leaving an ashy, black mark, but doesn't light another.

"But if you don't mind not askin' where it came from I might be able to get some booze."

Reimu laughs quietly, pressing a hand to her forehead. "Don't piss off anybody too powerful."

"You know me." Marisa winks.

"Oh, and if it's going to be out of the Scarlet Devil place, Remilia might be coming to the festival, so try to not steal from her," Reimu warns.

"Heh, thanks," Marisa says. It is getting colder, and she's tempted to take the mini-Hakkero out to warm up her hands. "Can I have some tea?" she asks instead.

"Sure, why not," Reimu says. "It's getting chilly."

Reimu's tea has always been a constant in Marisa's life. She doesn't make it as well as Alice does, and it's not as smooth and savory as the tea that she can sometimes taste in the Scarlet Devil Mansion. But to Marisa, it's tea that Reimu brewed for her, and that makes it special. They sit around the kotatsu like always, cups in their hands, black for Reimu, four sugar cubes for Marisa.

"Hey, uh... Thanks for telling me," Reimu says suddenly, after they've both gotten a chance to sip their drinks. "About you and your mom and everything, I mean. It's... I guess it's nice. I appreciate it."

"No problem. It was kinda bothering me that I never did."

"If you ever feel like it, you can tell me anything, alright?" Reimu seems just as flustered by the moment they're sharing as Marisa is. Neither of them does this often, apparently.

"Yeah," Marisa says. "You too, if there's anything bothering you, I'm here."

Reimu smiles warmly, in a way that she rarely has in years. Ever since she had to become responsible for Gensokyo, had to create the spell card rules, had to protect the border with her life like she meant it, she's smiled happily like this less and less. Marisa's started to see it as a treasure, when it does happen. "That's what friends are for, right?"

Marisa knows that much is true.


	7. Mima

The adult Marisa lives the kind of exciting life she only could have dreamed of (and _did_ dream of, all the time) as a child. She's fought youkai and humans, Lunarians and gods, seen celestials come down from the heavens, resurrected a presumed-dead saint or two. She's befriended them all, somehow, when she isn't lifting things from their houses. And she's seen Gensokyo, every inch she could reach, from fields of dazzling sunflowers to endless bamboo stalks climbing to the moon. She has so many close friends, and Reimu and Rinnosuke, who she can feel will always be by her side. Gensokyo is her family. Marisa laughs often and smiles even more.

But there's something small and cold inside her that whispers when she's alone, _something is missing, Marisa, something is wrong._

It's a dark night, the kind of dark that only happens in the deepest parts of the Forest of Magic. The only light as far as Marisa can see is the small lantern she keeps outside her door. She can't sleep, too concerned about Reimu investigating an incident somewhere in the Netherworld, though she won't admit it to herself. Reimu knows how to handle these things, has proven herself time and time again, but _still_. Maybe Marisa would have followed her down, if it was a year or two or more ago. But she's grown from that, learned to let Reimu handle things herself if that's what Reimu says she wants.

She's tried to read by candlelight, but the words swim in front of her eyes even when she tries to keep her place with a finger under the lines. All she can do is slump over the book in despair, her cheek pressed against the cool, smooth pages. She's almost resigned herself to restless sleep with her head on the table when she's jolted alert by a small shifting noise behind her.

Marisa still lives alone, aside from her mushrooms and magical paraphernalia collection, so her first thought is that someone's broken in. Her second idea is that one of the books she most recently stole from Patchouli had a well-hidden enchantment on it, and is now sentient and ready to kill her. Either way, she has to defend herself and her house. She's ready to spring up and fight as she turns around, her first spell already on her lips. And she stops.

"Oh," a familiar voice says.

Marisa jumps back in the same moment, nearly knocking her chair over in shock. "Mima?" she says, not wanting to believe it.

Mima's face almost shines in the dark, as does the curl of her spirit tail, luminous even without the glow of the candle to cast light on it. She rests a hand on her chin. "Hello, Marisa."

Marisa leaps out of her seat, impulsively throwing her arms around Mima's waist. She's cold where she starts fading into intangibility, and it chills Marisa's skin like winter, but Marisa doesn't care. "Where did you go," she nearly sobs. "It's been like ten years." She's split between relief and anger and sadness and joy and a million other things she can't name but Mima is here, Mima came back.

Mima pats Marisa's hair, the way she used to all that time ago. "I've been around."

"I missed you," Marisa says, choking up. She wants so badly to be thirteen again, to have Mima come back home and annoy her every day. No matter how much of an inconvenience it was to have Mima always bossing her around, it was Mima, who cared for her, and was there for her. She lets go, looks up at Mima's pale face. "I missed you so much."

"Hey, don't do that. Don't... be sad. I've heard about how you've been, and I have to say, I couldn't have raised a better witch. Especially all this," she says, gesturing at the piles of magical items Marisa's looted from all over Gensokyo. "That's quite a collection. I'm proud."

Marisa scoffs, always ready to show off her things. "I can barely walk in here anymore." She's smiling now, uncontrollably, and her eyes are still a little teary, but Mima is _here_ and this is happening, it's really happening.

"It seems like you've been doing fine." Mima looks around again, and Marisa can see her eyes settle on the narrow, Marisa-sized path weaving from the kitchen to Marisa's bedroom, books and assorted objects cramming the rest of the space. "Somewhat."

"I manage. Alice comes over and helps sometimes. Or, uh, at least tells me to clean." She pauses. "I don't remember if you ever met Alice."

"I don't believe so."

Marisa's eyes well up again. She feels like she's known Alice forever, and with that, it hits her hard again, that Mima has been gone so very long. "Why did you leave?" she asks quietly. She already knows the answer: _I got bored. I felt like it. I had no use for living with humans anymore._

What Mima says instead is, "It couldn't be helped."

Marisa can't think of anything to say. "How...?" she finally asks, and it's barely above a whisper, but it's the loudest thing in the dead of night.

Mima looks down, her ghost tail slowly shifting back and forth. "I remembered where I came from. It was... overwhelming. I couldn't think of anything else."

"Did you forget about me?" Marisa asks, her voice cracking.

Mima is quiet for a very long time. "I'm sorry," she says, finally. "I'm sorry, Marisa."

Mima is not often genuine. A simple apology can't make up for all the distress Marisa went through, all the time she spent alone. Marisa knows it. Mima left a hole in Marisa's life when she disappeared, and after losing her mother, it's much too sensitive. "I dunno if I can forgive you," Marisa mumbles. "But like, I'm really happy to see you anyway, you know?"

Mima smiles, and it is the most positive expression Marisa has ever seen lighting up her face. "I'm happy to see you too. Look how tall you are now." And it's true, Marisa's always been short, but she now comes up to Mima's chest, standing on the ground, instead of her waist.

"Hey," Marisa says. "Funny how that happens."

* * *

Marisa wants to know all about where Mima went, but Mima says it can wait until morning, when they can sit together and discuss it for hours if need be. Instead, they talk magic, and magical research, and Mima pores over Marisa's collection of books. "I've never even seen some of these in person. Very rare."

"I stole 'em." Marisa feels almost proud, admitting this to Mima, that she's actually managed to collect this much from thievery alone.

"From where, exactly?"

"My friend. You gonna start looting from 'em too?"

"No, that's not my job. But you've mastered the magic in here?"

"Some of it. Like, a lot, I mean. Hey, I bet I could crush you in a fight now," Marisa taunts.

"Oh, you wanna go? Try me," Mima responds, grinning.

Marisa's unable to resist a good danmaku battle, smiling as she opens the front door to follow Mima out into the warm summer darkness. And all throughout the night, magic spells and bright bullets fly through the Forest of Magic, as do the yells and laughs and shouted challenges of a girl, now a woman, and her former master, reunited at long last.

* * *

There's no place like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> marisa is one of my very favorite touhou characters, and i'd been wanting to write something with her for a long time. this has been my first time writing something and just publishing it as i finished chapters—when i started this i didn't know how it would end, and that isn't something i would usually take a chance on.  
> chosen families are very, very important to queer and trans people who have been rejected by their biological families for their identity, but anyone can have a chosen family, for any number of reasons. (i personally think of all of eientei as a chosen family, for another touhou example.) since marisa has canonically no contact with her father and her bio mother is never mentioned, i wanted to explore the idea. (plus i'm the biggest sucker for the PC-98 universe.)  
> thank you very much for sticking with me through this adventure.


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